Open Arms

by Vince Cable

‘Maybe he is just an overenthusiastic trade ambassador for UK plc?’ Kate suggested.

  ‘That’s what we all want to think. But what upsets Caroline is that this isn’t the first episode of this kind. A few months ago there was a controversy over licences for some advanced communications equipment from a firm in Northern Ireland. For Russia. Had all kinds of applications, including strategic military uses. Post-sanctions an absolute no-no. But the Red Admiral waded in, going on about how an American company called Global had rescued the plant from closure, turned it round, saving hundreds of jobs in an unemployment black-spot. The equipment was totally harmless, he claimed, designed to improve the safety of civil aviation. Made a big fuss. The Irish peace process would be seriously damaged, etc. I don’t know exactly what happened but somehow the licence was approved.’

  ‘What am I to do with this information?’

  ‘I don’t really know,’ Susan replied, ‘but Caroline and I thought you had a right to know. We’ll keep in touch.’

  CHAPTER 11

  THE INFORMER

  Financial Times, London, 12 July 2019:

  City analysts at Goldman Sachs have published an analysis of trends in the defence sector. They have highlighted the growing importance of a private US group called Global Analysis and Research which has entered the global top 10 by turnover for the first time. It has recently acquired several British SMEs in the sector and there have been rumours of takeover interest in others, including the Midlands-based company Pulsar.

  News that the contract was being ‘put on hold’ came at a bad time for Calum. His mainly American investors, who normally made a virtue out of not interfering, were becoming restless. They had taken him on trust that he could manage a complex project outside the comfort zone of NATO contracts. India, like other emerging markets, was relatively high risk with unpredictable politics they didn’t understand and a reputation for corruption that would test the patience of their lawyers, worrying about US and UK legislation on overseas bribery. But, so far, assurances about a ‘clean’ Indian partner and political backing from the relevant governments had kept doubts at bay. Now they were being told by their contacts in the State Department and the Pentagon that the high-ups were getting cold feet. Perhaps this contract, on the basis of which they had agreed to stump up substantial amounts of capital, wouldn’t materialise.

  During an urgently convened telephone conference of leading investors, the man from BlackRock confronted Calum directly: ‘Your Plan B? We assume you have one.’

  ‘My Plan B is making Plan A work. The contract is a win-win: jobs, strategic fit, good news all round.’

  The riposte was strong: ‘Unfortunately the politicos don’t see it that way. They are running scared. Wishful thinking isn’t good enough.’

  ‘Well, if the project is put on hold I will have to lay off some of our people and just keep those I need to fulfil the existing contracts. We may have to lose five hundred or so. It may cause a strike, which is why the politicians over here will do what they can to keep the project afloat.’

  One of the big institutional investors chipped in: ‘To be frank, we would be more comfortable if you went ahead with restructuring plans. You have shown before that you can manage the workforce and sell them necessary downsizing. We try to keep out of your way but we have been scrutinising your cash flow and it doesn’t look good without this contract. I have to think about the moms and pops whose money I look after. Sorry, but you know the score.’

  There was a grunt of approval around the group, though no reaction from the newest investor, a group called Global Analysis and Research, which had acquired a significant stake in the last few weeks, buying out smaller holdings. Calum worried about them: a somewhat mysterious US-based group that had built up, rapidly, a portfolio of high tech supply chain companies, not unlike his own.

  A few minutes later he called Steve into his office. Steve was still at the company, albeit in a state of limbo as his suspension hadn’t been formalised. Calum had shelved the issue, as was his habit with difficult personnel decisions.

  He explained that he had just come off the phone from his leading investors, and that there was a problem. ‘I have no choice but to lay off staff who aren’t needed for ongoing work. There are some short-term contract workers but there will be redundancies. I need you to explain this, and sell it, to the workforce. You haven’t covered yourself with glory over the demo, laddie, but now I need you. Stop the hot heads doing anything silly. Give them hope that we may be able to turn this round, if the workforce play ball. We did this together all those years ago.’ Steve was unable to do more than mumble agreement.

  Steve wandered down to the canteen. Usually he was surrounded by friendly faces: his loyal committee of shop stewards; admirers who looked to him for political leadership or personal advice. Today there was a frosty silence. One exception was a man he knew to be a troublemaker, Brian Castle, who he suspected of having links to far-right groups. Today he was brandishing a tabloid that specialised in horror stories about asylum seekers and illegal immigrants, especially Muslims. ‘See this, mate. Big story about our town. Teenage terrorists. Clerics trying to impose sharia law on the rest of us. Big families ripping off benefits. Maltreatment of women.’

  So that Steve wouldn’t miss the point Castle thrust the paper on the table in front of him jabbing his finger at the more inflammatory accusations, which were helpfully circled in biro. ‘Your bloody fault,’ he said. ‘Your lot let ’em in. And this isn’t Bradford; it’s just down the road. You should be bloody ashamed of yourself.’

  In normal circumstances Steve would have seized the opportunity to stamp his authority on the canteen; put Castle firmly in his place; reunite the workforce. Today he had nothing to say but just looked blankly in front of him.

  Shaida, like Steve, was thoroughly disoriented by the events of the last few days. The walls of the carefully segregated compartments into which she divided her life were giving way. Her brother’s troubles had invaded her professional life. And she’d let that happen because of a weakness for a man at work. She realised that she could have sent Steve packing but had, instead, found what seemed like a good way of developing their, so far platonic, relationship by involving her family. She acknowledged to herself that she wanted the friendship to deepen but had no idea how to make this happen in a way that wouldn’t compound the disaster she had helped to create.

  There was one consolation. Calum had made it clear that she was essential to preventing the company capsizing. With restive investors, he badly needed someone beside him who understood the numbers and could present them in the best possible light. Her job was safe.

  Then she had a visitor to her office, Liam: ‘just a routine security matter’. But it was more than that.

  ‘Your brother. We have uncovered some uncomfortable information about him. Some compromising messages he sent that could lead to his facing anti-terrorism charges.’

  ‘But you told me when I contacted you about that article that he wasn’t a threat.’

  ‘This is new material. I still think he is a bit player. But it isn’t good. And the publicity will not be good for you and your family.’

  ‘Are you threatening me?’

  ‘No. This is a worst case scenario.’

  ‘So. What is a better case scenario?’

  ‘You help me.’

  ‘I have already helped you.’

  ‘I think I can help to get your brother off the hook. If you are willing to work with me.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘You help me with information. In particular material from his computer. I know you are quite a whizz in that area. Something we have in common. You should be able to get access without being traced.’

  ‘Blackmail in other words.’

  ‘Call it what you like. I prefer to think you will help because it is right.’

  ‘I detest these Islamic militants as much as you do. I know the way they treat women. But spying on my own people… and
my brother… I can’t do that.’

  Liam could sense in her slight hesitation an opening.

  ‘I don’t normally talk about myself. The Service doesn’t encourage it. But let me explain. My parents were Northern Ireland Republicans who settled in England. Armchair Provos who brought me up to hate the British state: Easter Rising; Bloody Sunday; Bobby Sands. All that stuff. As a student I was on the hard end of the hard left. Drifted into anarchist groups. Violent anti-globalisation protests. I got myself arrested throwing bricks at the police. Some of my group wanted to go further. Bombs. Not to kill people but to frighten the capitalist class. Unfortunately the class warriors were inept. A young woman, a passer-by, had her legs blown off by mistake. I was already rethinking my values and that tipped me over the edge. I went to the police. Grassed on them. Put my comrades behind bars. The Service saw potential in me. Poacher turned gamekeeper. Anyway, too much about me: the moral is that when we see and hear evil we have to act. I believe you understand that.’

  Shaida said nothing and he took her silence as acquiescence. ‘If you are with me there is a small task that you can help me with immediately. It involves your colleague Mr Grant who definitely owes us a bit of cooperation. I want you to ask Mo to pass on the message that Steve is very keen to meet the same group again at the mosque, and others, especially those of a more jihadist bent. It is just possible that we may get a lead to one of our targets who we know to be active in the town. He has been in touch with your brother and attended one of the meetings. Can you help set that up?’

  Ganesh Parrikar received a message brought by hand to the servants’ quarters at his home late in the evening before he retired. It was a request from the Sheikh, dictated to a trusted intermediary, for an urgent visit to an exclusive private hospital where he lay seriously ill following a heart attack. The Sheikh might not have long to live. He needed to talk. If Parrikar followed the enclosed instructions his visit would be strictly private except for the Sheikh’s immediate family, currently gathered at the hospital.

  He hesitated. His old associate had betrayed and blackmailed him, organised the killing of one of his employees. Now he wanted some comfort before he met his maker. But the tone of the message contained a hint of desperation. Perhaps there was something Parrikar did not know. He summoned his driver and headed to the hospital, entering as instructed by a back entrance and reaching a floor at the top of the building by a service lift. He discreetly entered an ante-room to where the Sheikh lay. His wife and daughter were weeping silently and when Parrikar entered they rose to greet him, mumbling their thanks. The shrunken old woman with the grief-stricken face was barely recognisable from her beautiful and self-confident self of a generation ago when the Parrikars had given the family refuge. Her daughter had been a child then.

  When Parrikar was ushered in to the Sheikh he saw first the panoramic view of Mumbai by night and then the inert figure on the bed fed by tubes and attached to wires, with the rhythmic clicking of the machines the only sound apart from weak, uneven breathing from the patient. Parrikar sat beside the bed and the Sheikh opened his eyes with a flicker of recognition. A clammy, trembling hand sought out his visitor’s. They sat together in silence for a while until the Sheikh tried to speak in short, rasping gasps.

  ‘My good friend… thank you… thank you… want you to understand… They tricked me… made me… afraid… my son.’

  ‘Who is “they”?’

  The Sheikh moved his head.

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘No… afraid… my son.’

  ‘Your son Ali? Someone threatened to kill him?’

  He nodded slightly but definitely.

  ‘You had Patel killed?’

  He nodded again. ‘… or kill Ali.’

  ‘Who is “they”?

  ‘Gang?’

  There was a long pause. Exhaustion? Fear?

  ‘Trish… Trish…’

  ‘Trishul? Is that what you are trying to say?’

  There was a faint nod. The Sheikh turned away and closed his eyes.

  Parrikar held his hand for a while then left him to sleep. He doubted he would see the Sheikh again. He left choked with emotion.

  On the way out he gently embraced the Sheikh’s wife and daughter and they thanked him through their tears. He would go over the conversation in the morning with Deepak and try to make sense of it. What he had learnt was that the Sheikh had been merely part – perhaps an unwitting part – of something bigger and more threatening.

  Deepak was unable to add anything when they spoke the next day. He had never heard the term Trishul used outside of Hindu iconography. ‘A gang? How would I know?’ He realised that his contacts in Delhi wouldn’t be able to help with this one. He had the idea of consulting Inspector Mankad. ‘I don’t rate him or the Mumbai police but it is his job. We can at least try him.’

  Deepak arrived, feeling out of place and awkward, having been dropped off by his chauffeur at Dharavi police station where Inspector Mankad held court. To add to his embarrassment there were press photographers at the entrance who were waiting for a well-known figure from Bollywood to arrive in handcuffs and who snapped Deepak instead on the basis that he was probably a minor celebrity. Then there was a long wait as his briefcase and the contents of his pockets were examined at great length by an X-ray machine and its numerous operatives. Not satisfied, the operatives insisted on a detailed hand search of the briefcase, extracting a packet of condoms for prolonged public examination. The humourlessness and officiousness of the operation added to the hilarity of the proceedings, though Deepak was in no mood to laugh. Then he had to run the gauntlet of the dozens of shouting, jostling visitors, relatives, job seekers and hangers-on who seemed to populate the entrance to every Indian public building in contrast to the quiet, orderly, air conditioned oasis that was Parrikar House.

  That, and status, was why Deepak had initially summoned Inspector Mankad to his office. But the Inspector made it clear that he was not to be summoned but might find time for a meeting at the police station. He was a different man from the diffident, and deferential, officer who had been present at the official inquest into Patel’s death. Deepak had quickly pigeonholed him, without much thought, as a typical Mumbai police officer: not very bright; obsequious to his superiors and the rich and powerful; bullying to his juniors and the poor and powerless; and probably on the make.

  This case and the publicity around it had, however, energised and transformed Mankad. For the first time in his career he had appeared on the front page of newspapers and he was getting closer to his dream of the day when ‘Mankad catches his man’ led the news. He and his journalist contact had inflated each other’s reputations with a steady flow of leaks from the police enquiry. Mankad realised that the ‘political’ element in the case was dangerous but he had also grasped that with danger went a certain power. Everyone assumed that he would not be going public unless there was a Mr Big somewhere guarding his back. His superiors, who would normally grab any glory or forbid him from going near controversial cases, gave him a free run while wondering who Mr Big was. And as the enquiry gathered momentum, more and more little birds came bringing titbits of information to his office.

  The real test had come when his sources identified the group who had been present when Patel’s killer had been executed as punishment for his undisciplined loquaciousness. Two accessories to the murder had been members of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly. This was in itself no great surprise. In some of the more lawless states like Uttar Pradesh or Bihar over half the assembly members had been charged with murder, rape, kidnapping and other serious offences (though only a few had been convicted and imprisoned). Those two were arrested and charged on Mankad’s orders and were now sitting downstairs in what some humorist had called the ‘custody suite’. They resembled caricature villains whose heavily oiled hair, long moustaches, record breaking stomachs and betel stained teeth suggested that they had styled themselves on a popular movie gangster. Their
initial sense of outrage had turned to sardonic humour and threats to invoke the help of friends who, they claimed, reached to the top of government. Mankad did not allow himself to be fazed and kept them behind bars. Before long the villains had greased palms sufficiently to ensure a steady supply of luxury food and journalists who could regale the world with stories of their suffering in prison because of an over-zealous, misguided obsessive in the Mumbai police. Nonetheless, Inspector Mankad had them where he wanted them and another flock of little birds felt confident enough to bring information to his office and to his rapidly expanding team who were combing the baastis with unusual care.

  Now this Deepak Parrikar wanted to see him. Mankad admired Deepak’s role as a global – and seemingly honest – businessman, as well as a glamorous figure. But in their brief previous acquaintance he had come across as aloof and condescending: a Westerner patronising the natives. So he could wait. And he was required to wait for half an hour outside Mankad’s office on an uncomfortable bench with a number of unsavoury characters and with no respite from the heat. When he was finally shown into Mankad’s small office there was a blast of cold air from an old, rattling air conditioner turned to maximum volume and lowest temperature. The room stank of paper and cloth rotted by condensation. It felt and smelt as if fresh air had never been near the place. But the Inspector looked suitably impervious; and the walls were decorated with – now mildewed – pictures commemorating his progress through the ranks and, pride of place, his gallantry medal.

  Parrikar sought to settle himself and to open the conversation but he was interrupted several times by streams of messengers and tea boys and, then, heavily laden clerks bringing in more files to add to the collection on the desk. Parrikar noticed that, despite the heaps of paper, there was also a computer on the desk but it was ancient, seemed to have no power source and was probably the result of some, brief, failed attempt by a ‘new broom’ to modernise. At last he secured the Inspector’s attention.